2025 Jumbo Road Trip

 
Today’s Roadside America photo is of a very Big Cup outside an empty building. The cup has gone through several name changes (Lily Tulip – Solo – Dart), due to corporate mergers, but it remains a cup among giants.

So as not to slight the founder of North Augusta, SC, by posting a photo of the City of Aiken’s founder on Thursday, I took a selfie with James Urquhart Jackson this morning. I cannot find any information on how accurate his statue’s likeness is, but maybe because he founded his town in the 1890s compared to Mr. Aiken’s some 50 years earlier, there might have been actual photos of Mr. Jackson.

Because I was a dodo head when I made my VRBO reservation for my stay in the Aiken/Augusta area, what I thought was 5 nights turned out to be 3. When I realized my mistake, it was too late to stay in that one place I had picked out in North Augusta. So, I made a separate reservation for 2 nights in a B&B just south of Aiken. That’s the lead photo above, and it is called The Birdnest Inn.

When I checked in, the host mentioned that I had reserved the smallest room in the place, but seeing as I am the only guest, she upgraded me to the largest room. As with 95% of Bed & Breakfast places, it is decorated with impeccable style and usually in theme with the name of the inn, and this is no exception. I’m staying in the Mockingbird Suite, but there is no mockingbird decor, but I do have chickens, so I’ll have fresh eggs for breakfast.

 
Today’s photo is of the Meriwether Monument in Calhoun Park near downtown North Augusta that Roadside America has labeled – Monument to a White Supremacy Martyr

Just like the Santa Fe failed proposal prank back in January, I never did get everything together to prank my Miata Club peeps tonight. I was meeting with three couples to have pizza this evening and thought it would be fun to riff on the Alan Alda movie The Four Seasons and the new Netflix series based on that movie. If you are familiar with either the movie or TV show, maybe you can intuit what I was hoping to do. If not, follow along. The plot of The Four Seasons is based on three middle-aged couples who are good friends that vacation together 4 times a year. In the very first season, one of the husbands decides he wants a divorce from his wife. So the next season when they vacation together, the husband shows up with a much younger woman, and the ex-wife is nowhere to be found.

Because I’m nearly 70 years old, a much younger woman would be 40-45, and I don’t have a real good friend that has a female child that I knew and could borrow for an hour for the prank. I suppose I could have signed up on a dating app, but I’m not really dating, and I’m in a whole different zip code. I might have tried a university theater major, but would any one of them have bought the story? I’m betting alarm bells would be ringing loudly with that pitch. Today at lunch I went out with my Edward Jones rep, who Donna and I kept when we moved west, and her two employees. And truth be told, either one of them would have been perfect for the job and would have had good shock value. They were both probably in their high twenties or low thirties; one was African American, and the other was blonde with several tattoos. But, while friends with the Edward Jones advisor, she doesn’t know me that well to approve the plan. Plus, once again, I’ve only spoken a few times to either of these two women; I couldn’t, or really wouldn’t, ask.

Maybe if I do move back this way, I’ll start planning earlier…

Actually, Day 1 started yesterday; I met with a friend from the Miata Club days. She was actually one of the 12 founders of the Masters Miata Club back in the early 90s. I met her and her husband at their favorite watering hole, where we had dinner and drinks. NA beer for me, sweet tea for her, and some wine for her husband, who wasn’t driving—that’s right, PARTEE!

 
This morning, the actual Day 1, I drove over to Aiken and went for a walk in Hitchcock Woods, where Donna and I spent many a day exploring trails. In the time we lived in Aiken, I think we probably walked on every trail in there at least once. On the way into town I passed a billboard that featured a photo of the realtor who sold us our house back in 1989 when we first moved to Aiken. She also helped us sell that same house in 2019 when we moved to Oregon.

On a whim – no, that’s sort of a lie – I had looked at Zillow back in Oregon and picked a place I thought I’d like to possibly live, and if my favorite, and only, Aiken realtor was in her office, I’d see if she’d show some properties. She was, and she did. The first place we looked at had 2 bedrooms, two baths, and a 2-car garage, which is exactly what I’d want. The other two were non-starters, one too small and the other too big. The thing is I could afford to live here comfortably. And while there is a small chance that I’d move back here for that reason and the built-in friend group, I really like living out west. It’s a fallback position.

Later in the afternoon I met up with another Miata Club couple for coffee and a chat. They stopped going to club events back during COVID. They still have their Miata and do drive it occasionally. The club is still in existence, but it has mostly become a supper club of people who happen to drive the same model of car. Tomorrow is dinner with three Miata Club couples. I wonder if any of them are still in the club or even have a Miata in the household.

Okay, enough of that. For today’s Roadside America picture, I give you, Atomic Waste Container Art. I’ve noticed that the east side of the Mississippi really doesn’t do big things like they do out west. Not far from the waste container is a statue of the person the town is named for, William Aiken Sr. He was the president of the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company. He never set foot in the town, and because there were no known pictures of him, the artist used photos of descendants and other folks from that time period to create his “likeness.” Because of that, he deserves to be listed on the Roadside America site probably more than an atomic waste container, but what do I know?

 
Today was a short day, but I wasn’t in a hurry, as the lunch I wanted to do with my Edward Jones crew was moved to Friday. I stayed up until 11:00 PM and slept for only about 3-1/2 hours. I tossed and turned but couldn’t get back to sleep. I turned the temp down to 67 in the room and put earbuds in to listen to an Everyday Driver podcast. Somewhere in that hour I nodded off but woke up when the podcast ended. I got up, went to the bathroom, turned off the alarm, and got back into bed. I woke up at 7:30AM. Somehow I ended up with a good night’s sleep out of it.

My route took me right through the city of Macon, and I remember one time way back when I thought I should stop in and visit the graves of 4 of the 6 founding members of the Allman Brothers Band. I never had the time until today. Using the info from Roadside America, I knew sort of where the graves were located in the cemetery, but it took 2 passes and then a third, after returning to the entry of the Rose Hill Cemetery, where there were explicit directions posted to the grave sites. There is a fence around 4 graves because people were doing things to and sometimes on the graves.

Another grave with an Allman Brothers connection is that of Martha Ellis, who died in 1886 at 12 years old. It is believed to have inspired the band’s song ‘Little Martha.’ While looking for the band members’ grave sites, I happened to just stumble on her grave site. I picked out the statue easily enough while wandering around because I had seen the picture on Roadside America. Plus it was right along the road, unlike the band members’ site, which is in a small hollow in this very hilly cemetery.

I set my alarm for 5:00 AM because I wanted an early start, but I woke up on my own at 4:30 AM. So I got an earlier start. The hotel breakfast didn’t start until 6:00 AM, but as with most “free” breakfasts, they aren’t really worth the money, so my breakfast started at 6:30 AM at a Waffle House in Starkville, MS, about 90 miles away.

Today’s Roadside America photo is of the World’s Largest Brick Made of Bricks in Montgomery, AL.

After the big brick stop, and after traveling through this town probably 4 times in the past, I had enough time to stop there because of that early start. I spent an hour or so at the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site in Tuskegee, Alabama. I didn’t stay long enough to watch the main movie because I just missed the start. But I did view a few of the short movies around in Hangar 1. I walked up the stairs to the tower to have a look around. After walking through 3 or 4 doors with signs warning of wasps and not seeing them, as I went to open the door to the outside deck, I could see a few buzzing around. Nope, back down I went.

There was no admission fee and no drop box at the front desk, so I was going to go to the bookstore and buy a few things to support the place, but even though the sign said it should be open, the door was locked. Sigh.

 
This is my favorite Roadside America photo of the day, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Texas. I took a few yesterday and even posted one on Instagram last night. So I won’t put this on there, but I will add the other two Roadside America photos.

The first one is the Washington County Welcome Center just over the Mississippi River in the town of Greenville. It is in the shape of a paddle wheel riverboat. When I pulled in to the lot, there were no other cars. There were several cones on the wheelchair ramp and a lot of caution tape. There was also notes posted on the entrance door, but I just assumed it was closed, so I took the picture and moved on.

The second photo was only a short detour to the small town of Ruleville before arriving at my stay for the night in Greenwood, MS. Two out-of-service water towers, with one labeled HOT and the other labeled COLD.

The first stop of the day was to take this photo of the World’s Largest Jackrabbit is in Rails, TX, a town so small Google Maps doesn’t know it exists.

I have been to a few Stonehenge wannabes in my travels; of course, the first was the grand automotive one, Carhenge, in Alliance, NE. There is also a more thoughtful one on the campus of the University of Texas of the Permian Basin in Odessa, TX. And I’ve also been to America’s First Stonehenge replica in Maryhill, WA.

Today I got to see a Pickup Truckbed Henge located in Stamford, TX. Amazingly enough, it isn’t listed among the nearly fifty Henges on Roadside America’s website.

As a bonus, right across the street from Pickup Truckbed Henge is another Roadside America site, Isetta With Spider Legs, which the original tipster identified the car as a VW Beetle. Which is understandable, as there are several Beetle Spider art pieces around.

Ed Note: I had to recreate this day’s adventure because I accidentally overwrote it in creating Roadtrip – Day 11’s post.